


feeling our bodies breaking down

by lavab0y



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: M/M, Pining Michael, gay as shit, i didn't mean to, sorry for this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 12:37:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3381776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavab0y/pseuds/lavab0y
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>@Michael5SOS: I forgot it was Calums bday</p><p>@Michael5SOS: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE MAN THE MYTH THE LEGEND @Calum5SOS HOPE I DONT SEE YOUR PENIS. JK. MAYBE.</p><p>Sometimes Michael thinks he’s too good at missing Calum.</p>
            </blockquote>





	feeling our bodies breaking down

Sometimes Michael thinks he’s too good at missing Calum.

They’re on a break, the band, waiting for Rock Out With Your Socks out to start, and the others are passing their time by partying and shit, Michael’s cooped up in his room. It’s like a flashback to the times when the band was just coming together, when he first messaged Ashton on Facebook.

It’s sad, he knows it’s sad, and he sees all the tweets about him, the fans mocking him jokingly and not-so-jokingly, but he can barely bring himself to care.

Calum is gearing up for a whole week of partying, Luke right by his side -  _where you should be_ , a voice in his head whispers. He pushes the voice out and away. Ashton’s somewhere in the mountains, growing a beard and connecting with nature. And Michael’s sitting at home, ordering furniture from Ikea and coordinating couches and rugs.

The thing is, he can’t be what Calum needs him to be, can’t be his drinking buddy anymore, can’t be his wingman. Can’t watch Calum lick into someone else’s mouth on the dance floor. Can’t bear to hear Calum’s groans through the hotel room wall and not be the cause of them.

He’s getting too good at tracing the sound of Calum’s voice in the morning over his skin, getting too used to the other boys lips at the back of his neck when they cuddle, getting tired of willing a hard-on away when he wakes up sweating with Calum’s thigh between his legs.

And fuck, if that’s not a good reason not to go out, then what is?

He knows it’s cowardly to avoid Calum, on his birthday of all days, but he can’t help it. He wants too much and he’ll never, ever get it.

-

It’s the night of Calum’s birthday and he’s scrolling through Twitter (as per usual), watching photos of a tipsy Luke and a drunk Calum pop up, a hard clench in his gut when he sees the one with two of Calum’s friends kissing his cheeks.

So many well-wishers, so little time, and the other boys haven’t tweeted yet; Luke’s at the party and Ashton has no service, so Michael figures he might as well. He ignores the small swell in his chest when he realizes he’ll be the first in the band to publicly tell Calum happy birthday.

The goal was to be sweet but flirty at the same time, just a bit over the edge but no so much that he’ll get in trouble with management or, you know, permanently damage his friendship with Calum. Calum is the golden boy, Michael knows this; he was like this in high school, too. Always up for anything, quick to laugh and quick to defend, never actively being a good Samaritan but never shying away either.

He was captain of the footy team, brilliant at it and was on track to do it in uni. Michael watched every single one of his home games, and a few of his away ones as well. Calum was at home on the field, similar to the way he is on stage, in his element and  _bright_ , brighter than Michael can stand most days. Michael had seriously thought Calum could, and would, go pro.

But he didn’t. Michael remembers the crippling fear that came with graduation plans; everyone insisting for Calum to go to uni on a football scholarship, but Michael knew what that meant. That meant Calum would leave Michael behind. Michael, who was never really good in school, and even worse out of it; cripplingly antisocial most days and embarrassingly awkward when he did make the effort. He couldn’t leave Michael to fend for himself! 

Michael remembers typing up that “tbh" post even though Calum hadn’t liked his post or anything of the sort. It was a public way to get his feelings off his chest, push them out there into the world and away from his head, where he constantly analyzed everything. He felt sick when he added the “faggot” and “no homo” but he didn’t know what else to do. He felt even more sick without the addition, like someone could possibly suss out Michael’s true feelings for the Kiwi boy by reading it.

The feelings themselves were no surprise. It hadn’t hit him one day, while Calum was laughing, his eyes scrunched up and his nose flaring cutely, or during one of their long talks where Michael held Calum and tried to count the flecks of gold in his pupils. There was just a slow sense of knowing. Noticing little things that usually people wouldn’t think about their best friend but for Michael was daily occurrence. It scared him, but at the same time it was if he always knew - even when they were twelve years old, catching fireflies in Calum’s backyard on summer nights.

Michael smiled, exiting out of Tweetdeck just as the replies started to flood in. He wondered how Calum would react.

//

Michael was woken to someone shaking his shoulder rather roughly, which he did not appreciate. But once he blinked twice and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, his pupils focusing on a certain raven-haired boy looming over him, he forgot all about it. “Cal? What’re you doing here?”

"Saw your tweet. Did'ja really mean it?" Calum asked, leaning back to give Michael room to sit up. He was still in the mancave, sprawled out on the cream couch at the center of the room.

"Mean what? Who let you in?"

"Mean what you said in the tweet, dumbass! Your mum, obviously," Calum said, rolling his eyes but biting his lip, his entire stance screaming relaxed but his face saying something else.

"I don’t even remember what I tweeted, what are you talking about?" Michael said, fumbling around for his phone so he could open Tweetdeck and see for himself.

"Nothing, it was stupid, sorry-" Michael paused mid-swipe and looked up at Calum. 

"No, I’m sorry. I should have been at your party, but I didn’t feel good, I should have gone anyway, I-I’m sorry Cal," he said, feeling a little bit ashamed and a lot regretful.

"It’s alright, doofus, we missed you though. I missed you," Calum said, his smile back, although not at it’s full brightness. Michael felt a little miffed at that.

"Didn’t seem like it from the pictures I saw," he mumbled under his breath, a bit peeved. Wasn’t like he was jealous or anything. It was just friends, kisses on the cheek meant nothing.

"What? Are you…jealous?" Michael didn’t say anything for a long moment, hoping Calum would just drop it. No such luck. "Oh man, this is too good, you’re actually jealous! Of what? You want me to kiss your cheek too? You want to-" he lowered his voice at this, all sultry-like, "see my penis?"

Calum was in stitches, and Michael couldn’t even bring himself to fake-laugh with him, his face was stony and he knew it but he couldn’t pretend anymore. He was  _so fucking tired_  of pretending.

"Yeah, I do wanna kiss your cheek. And your nose, and your earlobes, and your fingers, and even your stupid "made-for-blowjobs" lips. And I really want to see your fucking penis. You caught me! I’m jealous because I’m fucking in love with you, you dipshit!"

Michael was breathing hard, and sometime during his admission he had started sweating and crying. He hoped that the tears could pass for sweat.

Calum wasn’t breathing at all, just staring at Michael with shock on his face, stock still and Michael was starting to worry. “Calum? Cal?” This could go very wrong very fast, and he didn’t want to lose Calum as a friend, but he just couldn’t hold it in any longer-

"I can’t believe you called me a dipshit." Calum was smiling, his 100% smile that made Michael’s fingertips tingle and his stomach erupt in something caught between butterflies and a tsunami.

Michael huffed out a laugh - Calum didn’t seem mad, or even disgusted, just happy. Michael was relieved. “Well, you are one, so…”

"Takes one to know one," Calum retorted and Michael opened his mouth to protest, but Calum had taken 3 steps into his personal space, looped his arms around Michael’s middle and pulled him in close, their chests flush and their faces red. Calum leaned in, booping his nose with Michael’s, making the pale boy roll his eyes and laugh, and fitted his lips with Michael’s, locking in like some last piece of the puzzle.

And they just kissed. Slow and sweet like they had all the time in the world to figure things out. Calum smiled.

They did.

**Author's Note:**

> so very sorry for this. also title from heartbeat in the brain by the world is a beautiful place (and i am no longer afraid to die)  
> originally based on michael's tweet, idk where the fuck it went


End file.
